There has been much research carried on in the past two decades for development of anti-inflammatory drugs. As a result, a great many new drugs have been synthesized. Most of these have been steroids of the 11-oxygenated pregnane series. These, while highly effective, have the drawback of causing many side effects. There has also been a concentrated effort in anti-inflammatory research in the indole and indene series with the result of many useful drugs. One particularly useful group of indene compounds are those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,654,349 issued Apr. 4, 1972. These new compounds are related to the 1-benzylidene indenyl acetic acids as described in said U.S. patent. They differ in one substantial respect in that the aryl group is substituted on the 4, 5, 6 or 7-position of the indene moiety. Because of this substantial difference, the compounds of this invention are prepared by different chemical processes.